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Ian Collins Explains How Princess Diana Has Been Over Romanticised

On the 20th anniversary of her death Ian says people should have a bit more perspective about what she actually achieved.

She was known as the ‘Queen of hearts’ and her death provoked an unprecedented collective outpouring of emotion in the UK. But Ian says we need to look at the facts more.

“She wasn’t mother Theresa. She wasn’t Ghandi. She didn’t solve world peace. I don’t think she did very much to be honest.

“Other than the famous photo of her hugging a man with HIV, I can’t think of anything Princess Diana actually did.”

While Ian says her list of tangible achievement might be short, he suggests much of her legacy has been built by her children, princes William and Harry.

“I think in death we’ve grown to like her more because of her kids in a way we didn’t actually like her when she was alive.”

While Diana's life generated an incredible quantity of headlines and has been dissected and analysed to excess, Ian is left with the question, what is her legacy?

“Will you tell your grandkids ‘you know that invention? That only happened because Princess Diana did it.’

“No. There are no such stories are there. We live in this sort of fairytale myth about this huge impact of this amazing person who I don’t think was so amazing in life, but has become curiously amazing in death.”

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